Washington gives cash, other perks to go get vaccinated. How about to go back to work?
Gov. Jay Inslee was behind other governors in jumping aboard the vaccination incentivization train. Now that he has, Washington is moving full speed ahead.
State lottery cash drawings, like the first $250,000 awarded Tuesday, are the most tantalizing prizes. But giveaways of everything from sports tickets to video game consoles — even marijuana products, strangely enough — increase the probability that vaccinated Washingtonians will win something while doing their part for public health.
Now a growing list of governors are trying a different kind of incentive to free Americans from their COVID-19 cages. They’re offering back-to-work perks, including cash bonuses up to $2,000, to nudge people off state unemployment rolls and into understaffed workplaces.
Creative reemployment incentives are worth exploring in Washington, too — especially as Inslee plans to fully reopen the economy by the end of June.
No business sector faces a labor crunch as daunting as leisure and hospitality. News Tribune staff writer Kristine Sherred recently reported how Pierce County restaurants are desperate to hire but struggling to fill jobs in both the front and back of the house.
Weakness in this area helps explain why Washington is rated the 10th slowest state to bounce back from COVID-19, according to an analysis released Tuesday by personal finance website WalletHub; it ranked us dead last among the 50 states in leisure/travel industry recovery.
But Inslee hasn’t shown the same gusto to hitch a ride on the back-to-work incentive bandwagon that he has with vaccination inducements.
Whether it would be effective and sustainable is a more complicated question than persuading people to get virus protection, which is literally a one-shot (or two-shot) deal.
“An incentive program for returning to work and an incentive program for getting vaccinated are substantially different things,” governor spokesman Mike Faulk said via email in response to our inquiry. “Our total spending on the lottery programs is $2 million in (federal) CARES funding. I don’t know what a return to work incentive would cost, but it would have to be much more than that and involve more staff and agencies as well.”
“Those aren’t reasons not to do it,” he added, “but comparing this with a lottery gives people the false impression that this could be done just as easily and have the same outcomes.”
There’s one big reason why Inslee hasn’t played copycat on reemployment incentives: Other states have tied them to slashing pandemic-related unemployment benefits. At least 25 states, all run by Republicans, are withdrawing early from federal programs that provide a $300 weekly jobless stipend.
Democrat Inslee would surely be among the last governors to go that route, and we understand the reluctance. Many workers would like to return to their old jobs but remain captives to the pandemic, often because they can’t find child care, have kids with underlying health conditions or children not yet eligible for vaccination.
Many others have reflected this past year on the long-term viability of unstable, lower-wage, low-benefit jobs, perhaps using the time to go back to school or gain new work skills. They’re the leading edge of a transition that was hastened, not caused by, the pandemic -- a puzzle that our service-based economy and elected leaders had better figure out soon.
“It’s important to remember we are not going back to the same economy,” Federal Reserve chair Jerome H. Powell told global economic leaders in April.
There were more than 9.3 million job openings across America at the end of April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday — 1 million more than the month before.
With that in mind, Inslee could borrow some promising back-to-work perks from other states —like college scholarships, or child care and housing assistance, which Arizona’s governor is rolling out — that have value long after a cash bonus is spent. Or Inslee could try his own menu of incentives; he’s opening opportunities for Guaranteed Education Tuition (GET) credits for the vaccinated. Why not for returning workers?
Tom Pierson, president and CEO of the Tacoma Pierce County Chamber, said he likes the idea of the state using tuition and other sweeteners to supplement private sector efforts to attract workers. “It doesn’t need to be a partisan play,” he said.
Meantime, Washington plans to reintroduce work search requirements next month for people to collect jobless benefits. Pierson calls that another piece to the reemployment puzzle.
Other states are using the carrot-and-stick approach. Ours would do well to experiment with more carrot and more creativity.
As a new economy and the “new normal” set in, and as Washington strives to do right by employers, employees and consumers, every little bit helps.
News Tribune editorials reflect the views of our Editorial Board and are written by opinion editor Matt Misterek. Other board members are: Stephanie Pedersen, News Tribune president and editor; Matt Driscoll, local columnist; and Jim Walton, community representative. The Editorial Board operates independently from the newsroom and does not influence the work of news reporting and editing staffs. For questions about the board or our editorials, email matt.misterek@thenewstribune.com
This story was originally published June 9, 2021 at 2:00 PM.